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1984 Olympic Summaries

I will begin to contribute the 1984 Olympic Summaries over the next
week. Some of the summaries are missing data, such as assists
on day one, SOG and goalies. Most all of the summaries are missing
goalie breakdowns when more than one goalie was used. If anyone
has the information needed please let me know, so I can update
the summary. These missing pieces of data are generally limited
to the first day of competition, however any sum that is missing
something will be noted at posting time. I would like to thank
Svetovy Poharu and Jukka Ruskeeahde for there help in filling
in the pieces that were missing prior to this posting.

The uniforms are a basic white. The lettering is a basic red. There are no whirls and flourishes, no stars and leafs and magic insignias.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics hockey team is not some expansion franchise outfit looking to make a fast consumer buck. The look of a champion always is a basic look.
"How does it feel to play against these guys?" Mario (Goose) Gosselin, the tiny goalie for the Canadian Olympic team, was asked last night at Zetra Arena.

"We play against the best team in the world," The Goose replied. "It is the one chance of my life. I play against Vladislav Tretiak, I play against the Big Machine."

The Big Machine. The Big Red Machine. Tretiak in the goal. A young guy named Viatchesla Fetisov on defense, who is compared only to Robert Gordon Orr in terms of style. Four lines that buzz, whirr and can make change for 1000 dinar note on the move.

For almost three weeks in this picturesque town, fuzzy-cheeked people had been assaulting mountains, speed barriers, wind currents, snow conditions and the force of gravity. On this night, it was the Canadians' fate to face The Machine. The Big Machine. The Ultimate Hockey Machine.

How to do it?

"There's no point in trying to snow your players," Canadian coach Dave King, a well-spoken, thoughtful guy, said. "They know how good this team is. They also know how good our team is."

The memories of the Lake Placid embarrassment burn brightly for the Russians, the dull February night in 1980 when they were upset by the US for the Olympic gold medal. The Russians have changed their team, dropping all but 10 players, and have attacked these Games with a ruthless zest. They cruised into the medal round with one methodical 8-1 victory after another.

How to stop this?

"I've known as long as I've been coaching my team that we'd have to do something special if we ever played these guys," Dave King said. "I've always had it in the back of my mind."

His plan was stolen from basketball, from boxing, from the courtship of a very pretty but reluctant girl. He would take the air out of the basketball. He would lie on the ropes in a grand, Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope style, taking punches and waiting to score points. He would sit on the front porch and wait and wait for the right answer.

Basically, Dave King decided he would circle the wagons and hope that the Indians became tired.

"It's nothing new," the coach said. "I saw the Calgary Flames use the same style and beat the Russians once, 3-2. I've seen other teams try."

He decided to play three defensemen and two wingers instead of the normal, used-forever style of three forwards and two defensemen. The Russians would be given the puck for 45, maybe 50 minutes of the 60-minute game. The Canadians would try to stay alive and somehow win in the other 10 or 15 minutes.

The three defensemen would try to make sure that the Russian shots weren't easy, unimpeded shots. The two wingers would wait for those few breaks that might give the Canadians a few shots. A Hail Mary might be whispered in both French and English every now and then.

"The style does two things for you," Dave King said. "No. 1, you can't go toe-to-toe with those guys or they'll kill you. Or at least they'll kill us. No. 2, it spreads the work a little. Your normal two defensemen don't have to be as concerned with those breakaway situations."

There are no surprises from the Russians now. Not the way there were in 1972 when The Machine came into Montreal Forum and seemed to have learned to play hockey on some other, fast-passing, instant-moving planet. Everybody plays that way now on an international level. The Czechs. The Swedes. The Canadians. The Americans were trying to play that way.

The Russians simply play it better.

"They have better players," Goose Gosselin said. "That's all. They have good scorers, good defense, a goaltender at the end who can stop the puck."

The nervousness the Canadian kids felt was the same nervousness the skiers felt at the top of Jahorina and Bjelasnica all week. The nervousness of the challenge. They looked at the Soviet rooting section behind the goal, the hammer-and-sickle flags flying, they heard the strange-language Soviet cheers, they shouted and rolled into action against the nondescript, championship uniforms.

The Canadians won the face-off. Gosselin stopped his first breakaway with 20 seconds played in the game.

"That," he said, "is how fast they are. We win the face-off, and they have a breakway within 20 seconds."

Ah, but the strategy seemed to work well. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty. The shots on goal were 14 for the Russians in the first period, five for the Canadians, but the score was a lovely 0-0.

"I said, Zero-zero, all right!' " Dave King said. "I was elated."

"I say, Shutout,' " The Goose said. "I will get a shutout against The Big Machine."

There were 10 more minutes of this, 11:31 to be exact, and in many ways, it was the most exciting 31 minutes and 31 seconds of the entire Games. There were memories of 1980, singing in the streets of Lake Placid, joy at the improbable taking place before your eyes.

"The Russians were thrown off their stride for a while," Dave King said. "Yes, I definitely think they were."

The rest? Well, The Machine is not called The Machine without reason. The final score was 4-0.

Make No Mistake About It: Soviets Atone

The Soviet team guide refers to it as the "unexpected mishap at Lake Placid." The official view is that what the Americans considered a miracle was merely one of those cosmic burps that come along once a generation.

"If we played again their 1980 team, I don't think they should have been able to win," USSR hockey coach Viktor Tikhonov concluded. "Even if they play the second game in Lake Placid.
The Russians craved a piece - a large piece - of the US team. "They wanted us," captain Phil Verchota said. "But we dodged them."

So the Russians had taken it out on anyone handy - 6-1 over the West Germans, 10-1 over the Swedes, 4-0 over the Canadians and, yesterday, 2-0 over unbeaten Czechoslovakia for the Olympic gold medal they missed last time.

When it was done, the Soviet players happily flung their sticks into the cheap seats, embraced goalkeeper Vladislav Tretiak and bounded upon the award stand.

"I think it will be a good celebration," Tikhonov said, after his people had won all seven matches by a 48-5 aggregate. "We have had a number of triumphs in the last few years. The only one we miss is an Olympic gold medal, and now we have achieved it."

There was redemption there, and a measure of relief. There are few tougher tasks than coming to an Olympics as a prohibitive favorite. Ask Scott Hamilton.

"The Russians have nothing to gain and everything to lose," US coach Lou Vairo had said. "That's a horrible position to always be in. They get the silver medal, they go home in disgrace. We go home with a silver, they hold a parade for us."

The Czechs, who were fifth at Lake Placid, won the silver; Sweden dumped Canada, 2-0, for the bronze. "There are 20 guys all crying in there," said Canadian coach Dave King. "They're sitting with their heads down. They had high hopes. They really thought they could beat the Swedes."

For a dozen days, it had been a lovely little run. Canada had won its first four games, taking down the US and Finland in the process. Then, the Canadians simply stopped scoring - going their final 181 minutes and 42 seconds without a goal - and lost to the Czechs (4-0), Russians (4-0) and Swedes.

Yesterday, needing only a tie to take the bronze, the Canadians came out tight and jittery and never settled down. "We were like a bunch of seagulls on the bench," King said. Peter Gradin got Sweden a goal after 31 minutes. Karl Soedergren added another on the power play 13 minutes from the end, and it was gone.

The Swedes, who were also third at Lake Placid, were delighted with their bronze. They came here with no illusions, and left with fewer.

This was the Soviets' party, and they played the tune. Half of the 1980 team (nine of them forwards) had been replaced, but the critical people - Tretiak, defensemen Vyacheslav Fetisov and Aleksei Kasatanov, wings Vladimir Krutov and Sergei Makarov - were still on hand.

Around them, Tikhonov had molded a group of brilliant new faces, such as wing Nikolai Drozdetski, who scored 10 goals here. The Soviets barely needed their first line of Krutov, Makarov and Igor Larionov (eight goals total). They got 26 from their third and fourth lines. "The Russians," Bruins GM Harry Sinden would say, "are unbelievably good."

Tikhonov, who presided over the Lake Placid mishap, returned, too, with a small brown book in which he scribbled salient scouting notes. "I don't use it too often," he admitted.

Tikhonov knew that everybody here, from the Italians to the Czechs, would play his team the same way - by circling the wagons. The Czechs dropped back into their 2-1-2, keeping the left wing back to create three defenders, hoping for the opening that would let them bust out for a breakaway.

They never got it yesterday. The Russians kept pressing the play from the neutral zone, buzzing goalie Jaromir Schindel (31 saves). They got goals from Aleksandr Kozhevnikov (6:38 of the first) and Krutov (1:12 of the second) and seemed content. If any Czechs got past the red line, Fetisov and Kasatanov, undoubtedly the best defensive tandem on the planet, were standing imposing sentry.

And as for Tretiak, who has now won three gold medals and a silver . . . "I would say he played like Tretiak," Tikhonov said. "Not worse than that."

Meaning that Tretiak gave away nothing. He would stand idle for three, four, five minutes at a stretch, watching the play at the other end. When a rival forward shook loose and headed for him, Tretiak shrugged off the cobwebs, spring to life and denied him.

He did not allow a goal in the medal round, and when the final buzzer sounded, nobody had scored on Tretiak in the final 129:56.

So the gold medal is back in the USSR for the sixth time in eight Olympiads, and the Soviets are already planning to crunch a few old friends at this fall's Canada Cup. "This triumph we have today," said Tikhonov, "is already history."

So, he said, is the mishap at Lake Placid. Fate had it that there would be no rematch here, which was probably just as well for the Americans. Missing a date with these people is like missing a ride on the Hindenburg.

In another hockey development, Le Journal de Montreal reported that the NHL's Calgary Flames are ready to pay Czechoslovakia $2.6 million for two players and the head coach of that country's national team.

The newspaper said Sunday that Flames general manager Cliff Fletcher made a pitch to Czechoslovakian hockey officials in Sarajevo early last week to acquire left wings Igor Liba and Jaroslav Benak, as well as veteran head coach Ludek Bukac.

The report didn't indicate whether the Czechs showed any interest in Fletcher's offer. Benak was considered a bust in the Olympic tournament, but Liba, with four goals and eight assists, was one of his team's best performers.

Liba was a fifth-round draft choice of the Flames in last year's NHL entry draft, while Benak was taken in the 11th round.

How things are changing...Today yugoslavians were pray to get such result... :innocent0 :)

Not necessary. Yugoslav Olympic team in 1984 was 100% Slovenian, composed of players from Jesenice and Olimpija. As we all know, Slovenia is today perfectly capable of playing Italy on equal basis (although Slovenians lost the decisive game against Italy in World Group) and would definitely fared better against Poland than it did twenty two years ago.

I doubt Sweden could now beat Slovenia 13:0 and I also doubt Germans would have won 8-1.

Just because term "Yugoslavia" was transfered to Serbian hockey since 1992, doesn't mean that post-1992 "Yugoslav" hockey had anything to do with pre-1992 one.

In world relations, Serbian hockey was in 1984 as exotic as now - Division 2 rank.

They Don't Believe In Miracles

They will not be coming home to an obscure airport at a bizarre hour, shoulders hunched, glances averted. The US Olympic hockey team took the night train to Zagreb and are flying by commercial jet today to New York City. They will arrive in full public view. No apologies, no excuses.

"I don't think we have to apologize for anything that's happened," said coach Lou Vairo. "I worked as hard as I could. So did the staff. So did the players. We're not going home a disgrace.
They're just going home seventh, which is exactly where the seeding chart said they'd be. It is a disappointment, but after the hysteria of Lake Placid, even a bronze medal would have been a disappointment.

"No matter what we did," said wing John Harrington, a 1980 veteran, "less than the gold medal would have been a letdown."

The Lake Placid miracle weighed on this team like a golden millstone. "Maybe the expectations were too high," Vairo said. "Eric Heiden won five gold medals, but I didn't see anybody expecting our speed skaters to duplicate that."

Only two men from the 1980 club - Harrington and Phil Verchota - played for this one, yet their countrymen seemed to consider the teams identical. So they were loved to death before they ever reached Olympus.

"We could do nothing wrong," said Harrington. "Back in the States, whether we won the game or not, there was always another photo session or another banquet the next day with people telling us we were the No. 1 cat. So the feeling was, well, we lost tonight but we're going to be on the Today Show in the morning and they'll tell us we're great again."

They arrived here for the Games . . . and nothing happened. The Americans seemed to be waiting for the magic to kick in. When it didn't, they were bewildered.

"Amid the whole carnival atmosphere since 1980, the US team deluded itself," said ABC hockey analyst Ken Dryden. "There are some awfully good teams here, with players who are in the prime of their careers, 24 and 25 years old. If they were playing at their level, the US was no better than an even bet for the bronze. I think the team thought it was better than it was.'

Finishing with a 2-2-2 record was a shock to the American players. They still can not explain what happened to them or why. "Everyone would like that simple, easy answer," Verchota said, "but I don't know if you can find those anymore."

Theories abound. The players were too young. Vairo couldn't pump them up or settle them down. They underestimated their rivals. They overestimated themselves. They had no natural leaders. They brought the wrong defensemen. They were a one-line team.

There is some truth to all of the above, but the reasons for this team's collapse are less technical than cerebral.

The Americans simply never felt right, not from the morning of the first game against Canada. Their bus was caught in downtown traffic a mile from the rink. Their anticipation turned to anxiety. They had just enough time to dress before warmups.

"I sensed a strange feeling before we ever went on the ice," Vairo said. "And I don't know what it was."

When Pat Flatley scored on Canada's first shot, the Americans went numb. "They suddenly became aware that they might lose," Dryden said. "They had never really considered that. They weren't prepared for it."

Once Canada had upended them, the Americans never regained their balance. "There was that feeling of always being back on our heels and struggling," Harrington said. "When we really weren't that far out of it."

Had defenseman Tom Hirsch's slapper been half an inch lower instead of dinging the Canadian crossbar 16 minutes from the end, the Americans would have tied the game, 3-3, and perhaps gone on to win it. From such little things are gold medal runs forged.

Said Verchota: "We never got that big lift, that timely goal. At Lake Placid, pucks were falling into the net."

Except for Mark Kumpel's shorthanded goal that briefly tied the Czechs, the Americans never produced the kind of galvanizing moment that the 1980 squad got from Bill Baker in the last 30 seconds of the Sweden game and kept creating every seven minutes for two weeks.

"Emotion is something you can't manufacture," Vairo said. "It has to be spontaneous. It's no good if it's fake. And we never had a chance to generate it."

Until Pat LaFontaine led a two-minute, three-goal tattoo at the end of the Austria game, the Americans never managed to freewheel the way they had for six months against NHL clubs, college varsities, the Canadians and the Soviet B team.

When you asked the players what they regretted most, that was it: The world never really saw what we can do.

Vairo would say that he'd give anything to begin the Games afresh, without the jiggy feeling that led to the numbness that led to the drowning feeling the Americans couldn't escape for three games.

"It was like sinking," Vairo thought. "We were reaching for a rope and it was always a half-inch away. It was one of those deals."

One moment, he says, crowned the whole grim two weeks for him. "David A. Jensen is in front of the Polish goal," Vairo remembered. "There's nobody within 15 feet of him. LaFontaine puts the puck right on his stick. It bounces off, David steps on the puck and falls down. Nobody within 15 feet of him. That, to me, sums up the way it was for us the whole tournament."

No apologies, no excuses. If you want to blame Vairo, Vairo will take the blame. "I've got big shoulders," he said. "I take the responsibility for the record. It comes with the territory".

He knew it was a thankless task when he signed on. "I'm proud I coached this team," Vairo insisted. "I'm proud I had the guts to take on a situation that could very well have turned out like it has. And I'm proud of the players who took the same risk. Our country was built on taking chances."

Mike Eruzione and his Boys of Winter left a large wake behind them, and this team was forced to swash around in it since July. Everybody from Vogue to Ted Koppel wanted a piece of them. "People said we were celebrities before we ever got here," Vairo mused. "Maybe we could have put paper bags over our heads and snuck around back doors of rinks."

They didn't then and they won't now. This is an American team that hides

from nobody. "People will want to ask questions," Verchota said. "And that's fine. But I really don't feel that people will come up to me when I'm having a beer and pick a fight with me because we didn't win."

Still, the US hockey team comes home today with no medal and no magic, and the players aren't quite sure how their countrymen will receive them.

"I don't know how many friends we have left," John Harrington said. "We have us 20, though.

Canadians To Squeal If Us Protests

They were grouped together for a photograph as soon as they stepped off the plane here two days ago. "The four bad guys," joked Canadian hockey goalie Mario Gosselin. Mark Morrison, his fellow desperado, nodded. "Maybe," Morrison mused, "we should wear black hats."

Or scarlet letters. Gosselin, Morrison and teammates Dan Wood and Don Dietrich have been told by their Olympic committee that they are amateurs - or at least as amateur as any of the "amateurs" here. The US Olympic Committee says they are professionals because they've signed NHL contracts. What they are is bewildered.
"I'm just a hockey player," says Dietrich, "here to represent my country."

Tomorrow, his country intends to submit Dietrich's name along with those of the other "bad guys" with its official 20-man roster. When Canada does, and when the USOC files its protest, the four players will become the focus of perhaps the most widespread eligibility dispute in Olympic history.

By the time it is resolved - if it is resolved at all - the debate could involve more than a dozen players from half of the 12 hockey-playing countries at the Winter Games. All of them, claim Finnish officials, have played in either the NHL, the old WHA or for a minor-league team.

"We've done homework," agrees Canadian Amateur Hockey Assn. president Murray Costello, "to indicate that a number of teams are every bit as eligible - or ineligible - as the Canadian team."

And if the four Canadians are banned from these Games, Costello says the entire team may pull out. "It's one of the options," he says, "that may have to be considered."

Meanwhile, with the opening game against the USA looming Tuesday afternoon, Gosselin and his mates wait and fret. "I cannot say it is not on my mind," says Gosselin, "because it is. I try to not think about it, but it is a factor. It has been this way for a long time but we all try to ignore it.'

Gosselin has done nothing more than sign a contract with the Nordiques, but by International Olympic Committee rules, that makes him a professional. Dietrich played six games for the Black Hawks this year, Morrison nine games for the Rangers two years ago. And Wood has spent several seasons in the Central Hockey League.

The players were told when they joined the team that the Hockey Canada people were launching a crusade designed to give their team a fighting chance four years from now, when Calgary will host the Winter Games. They were told that there might be some turbulence about it.

"We're being used as bait," Morrison concedes. "But it's for the betterment of hockey in Canada. Everyone knows that we haven't done too well in Olympic hockey recently. They're using us now so in 1988 they can use better players."

What Canada wants is the right to suit up anyone who has not played 10 NHL games. They say that the International Ice Hockey Federation, which runs the sport at the amateur level, has already agreed to it.

And Canadian officials are upset that their American comrades not only are not supporting them, but are challenging them.

"If the American officials had their way," says Hockey Canada chairman W.Z. (Bud) Estey, "we'd come here with 14 women on our team and two women goalies from the University of Toronto. That seems to be what they want Canadian hockey to be."

US Olympic hockey coach Lou Vairo scoffs at Canadian claims that four of his players had signed NHL contracts and should be ineligible for the Games.

"I've talked to the team half a dozen times about that," Vairo said as the Americans took the ice for their first pre-Olympic practice here. "I said: Do nothing, sign nothing.' And every one of them has assured us that they haven't signed a contract."

A day earlier, Estey, who is also a Canadian supreme court justice, said his people could prove several Americans had done so. Estey also ripped US officials for lining up against what he said was America's last ally "on the face of the earth."

Vairo, who'd read Estey's comments, was furious at "this judge guy. You'd better believe that bothers me," he said. "I didn't know he was (Prime Minister Pierre) Trudeau. I'm very insulted. And if I was a Canadian, I'd be even more insulted to have a judge speaking for my country."

That was merely the latest exchange in a sniping volley which has escalated ever since Hockey Canada adviser Alan Eagleson claimed that two members of the 1980 US team had been professionals before they played at Lake Placid.

"We're laughing at it," says 1980 captain Mike Eruzione, whom Eagleson named along with defenseman Ken Morrow. "He's trying to take something away from us and from the country, something he has no clue about. What does Alan Eagleson want me to do? Go around the country and say, Forget what you saw, it never happened.

4 Ruled Ineligible By Ioc

The International Olympic Committe ruled today that anyone who has ever signed a contract with the National Hockey League is not eligible for the Winter Olympics.

The ruling means that at least four players from two teams will be disqualified from the Olympics.
The IOC settled the battle within its ranks over hockey eligibility by deciding that an NHL contract made a player a professional under Olympic rules, endorsing the position of its Eligibility Commission.

Murray Costello, president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, said after the ruling, "They did not mention the names of any players. But, yes, they seem to be limiting it to the NHL."

The IOC asked each team to investigate its players and if any of them violates the rule the player should be disqualified from the Games.

But it applies directly to four of the players who have been tied up in the hockey eligibility controvery of recent days.

Hockey, the first event of these Games, is scheduled to get under way tomorrow and the IOC ruling has the effect of disqualifying Mark Morrison and Don Dietrich of Canada and Jim Corsi and Rich Bragnalo of Italy.

The IOC stated, "The Eligibility Commission, in agreement with the IIHF (governing body of the sport), states as of today that players are not eligible when they have or have had a contract with the National Hockey League."

The press release distributed by the IOC said the commission's proposal was approved. It was given to reporters a little more than an hour before the rosters were to be submitted for the Olympic hockey tournament.

Five other players whose amateur status was under question after a protest by Finland might well be able to play in the Olympics under the decision. They are Rich Cunningham and Greg Holst of Austria, Dan Wood of Canada, Thomas Milani of Italy and Bjoern Skaare of Norway.

The IOC said that each team should check its players and if any ineligible ones are found they should be withdrawn.

The teams would be given four days to replace any players striken from a

roster for failing to meet the standards.

But, Murray Costello said after the IOC announcement, that he would submit a roster tonight containing the names of all 20 players.

Costello told reporters, "We will submit all 20 names on the team we brought here and see what happens. We're kind of uncertain about the way the whole thing was stated.

Morrison played nine games with the New York Rangers two seasons ago and Dietrich was with the Chicago Black Hawks earlier this season. Corsi, a goaltender, spent a season with the Edmonton Oilers and Bragnalo played parts of two seasons with the Washington Capitals. But none of those players had signed a contract.

The IOC ruling came in the early evening here and followed a three-hour meeting among Olympic officials and the countries involved in the series of eligibility disputes that have arisen over the teams here.

The committee reached a decision this morning on the eligibility of nine hockey players but delayed announcement of that decision until late afternoon.

Willi Daume, chairman of the Eligibility commission, said, "The announcement is not ready, but we have a decision. It is not so easy and we still are working on things. We have reached a decision but we cannot say what it is. It has to be discussed with the IOC."

Finnish hockey officials said they had dropped protests over two players, including one who was injured and was not present for the XIV Olympic Winter Games.

Morrisson, Wood and Dietrich also are among the four Canadian players that the United State Olympic Committee has said should not be allowed to play as amateurs.

The fourth player that has concerned USOC officials, Mario Gosselin, was not on the Finnish protest list.

Not necessary. Yugoslav Olympic team in 1984 was 100% Slovenian, composed of players from Jesenice and Olimpija. As we all know, Slovenia is today perfectly capable of playing Italy on equal basis (although Slovenians lost the decisive game against Italy in World Group) and would definitely fared better against Poland than it did twenty two years ago.

I doubt Sweden could now beat Slovenia 13:0 and I also doubt Germans would have won 8-1.

Just because term "Yugoslavia" was transfered to Serbian hockey since 1992, doesn't mean that post-1992 "Yugoslav" hockey had anything to do with pre-1992 one.

In world relations, Serbian hockey was in 1984 as exotic as now - Division 2 rank.

yes, 90% of the yugoslav league was slovenian. even though serbian, croatian clubs had teams, their strongest players in non slovenian clubs were generally also slovenian. if i remember correctly slovenian teams olimpiya and jesenice had won all the yugoslav championships for most of the last 30 years.

This is an excellent thread! Thank you to David Martinez and everyone else who contributed. The 1984 and 1988 Games were very special to me and being able to have this data is really precious. There's no way to ever fully appreciate this. :)

Well, if I know I have the game summaries from the newspapers and the lineups for the games involving Sweden, so I would love to get the lineups for the other games. The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto doesn't have them. In fact they have very little on the 1988 OG.